Agenda/Schedule

The central hub for AfroTech badge pick-ups. Attendees can also get assistance with schedule access, venue navigation, and general event questions.

Missed the first orientation? Join the team in another official AFROTECH™ sponsor orientation and welcome including important lead retrieval training leveraging Blavity's proprietary Talent Infusion platform.

MCP is quickly becoming the standard for connecting AI assistants to the tools, data, and systems they need to take action. This session introduces Model Context Protocol servers in clear, accessible terms: what they are, what problems they solve, and how to apply them to real business workflows and automations. Useful for engineers building the infrastructure and leaders who need to understand it.

Kick off your AfroTech experience with an overview of the conference, key programming highlights, and tips to make the most of your time. Meet fellow attendees, get familiar with the schedule, and set yourself up for a successful and inspiring week.

Agentic AI handles what rigid workflows cannot: messy inputs, ambiguous requests, and processes spanning multiple systems. This live demo shows agentic AI acting as adaptive middleware, connecting and orchestrating systems in real time, interpreting intent, and adjusting when conditions change. Built for engineers, architects, and technical leaders designing trustworthy AI systems at scale.

Solve for Gen Z.

Build a real, tech-enabled solution to a problem facing your generation. Defend it live on the AfroTech stage in Houston. Winner takes all.

Click HERE To RSVP

For professionals responsible for revenue, risk, and community impact, moving fast with AI means more than knowing how to prompt. In this workshop, Daphne Charles demos a real five-step AI pipeline she built and shipped, then shows attendees how to map their own workflows onto the same pattern, translating organizational values into system constraints that hold up when real stakes are on the line.

Production-ready agentic AI demands more than a good model. It demands data architecture built for what agentic systems actually require. This session shows how edge computing, vector databases, event brokers, and frameworks like Spring AI combine to move AI from proof-of-concept to production with real resilience and low latency. If AI initiatives keep stalling before they ship, this session answers why.

Louis Carr has spent four decades generating over $10 billion in advertising revenue, developing leaders, and making the case that Black audiences are among the most valuable and underestimated consumers in America. He has been right every time. This session is a working conversation about what it takes to lead at scale over the long term, how to build deep audience intelligence, develop real talent pipelines, and stay indispensable across every era of industry change.

 Why is it that a great salary doesn't always translate to peace of mind? As your career grows, so do the financial decisions. Promotions, equity compensation, changing markets, supporting family, buying a home, and life's unexpected turns can leave even high earners wondering if they're making the right financial decisions. In this session, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional Kofo Akosile will explore how holistic financial planning can help you move from simply reacting to life's uncertainty to responding with confidence. You'll walk away with practical strategies to make more informed financial decisions, align your money with the life you're building, and create a plan that evolves alongside your goals. Because true wealth isn't measured by what you earn, it's measured by the freedom and confidence to navigate whatever comes next.

Better outputs start with better inputs. This session introduces context engineering, the discipline of designing, optimizing, and managing the information you send to an AI model. Context engineering shapes up to 99% of an AI's effective data footprint. Attendees leave with a framework for mapping their own workflows and techniques for building reliable, scalable AI integrations.

Dr. Olukunle Owolabi, ML Engineer at Meta AI, has taken products from zero to production at scale inside one of the largest AI organizations in the world. This session covers what nobody tells you about building real AI products: aligning stakeholders early, why your eval framework matters more than your model choice, and the privacy and cost tradeoffs behind decisions that look purely technical.

As America’s largest publisher with over 40 iconic brands, People Inc. is transforming how people find inspiration, make decisions, and take action. In this session, People Inc.’s Chief Technology Officer, the VP of Talent Development, Culture & Belonging, and the Editor at Large of People Magazine discuss how the company is building the next chapter of media experiences through new technology.

This conversation will look at how companies are restructuring work in practice: which roles are being created, which are disappearing, how expectations for early-career talent are shifting, and what employers need to rethink as they build the workforce of the future.

Facillitators:

Olivia Jefferson: Vice President of Social Impact at Best Buy

Lindsay Smith: Director of Philanthropic Partnerships & Stewardship at Best Buy

AI won’t replace your judgment, but it may be eroding it.

As AI becomes embedded in everyday decision-making, leaders are offloading more cognitive work than they realize, introducing a new and largely unexamined risk to performance.

Dr. Murray, a neuropsychologist working at the intersection of brain science and executive function, will help attendees understand how AI is reshaping cognition and what leaders must recognize to remain effective.

This focus is not about rejecting AI. It’s about recognizing the cognitive tradeoffs and knowing where reliance becomes risk.

A data leader from DoorDash and a design leader from Deliveroo (a DASH company) in conversation about building AI that people actually use. Felicia Williams (Senior Director, Product Design, Deliveroo) and Alyssa Wisdom (Director, Analytics, DoorDash) discuss the decisions behind shipped AI — what they chose not to build, where the data led them, and who gets considered when those calls are made. Includes an exploration of Ask DoorDash from both disciplines and an audience Q&A.

Salesforce invites you to dive headfirst into the newest technology with our hands-on bootcamp focused on Building Your Agentic Future. This immersive 4-hour, bring-your-own-laptop session is your launchpad into the Salesforce ecosystem and the latest in artificial intelligence.

Whether you are new to tech or looking to rapidly expand your skill set, this session is designed to empower you with the knowledge and practical experience needed to thrive in an AI-driven world. During this interactive bootcamp, you’ll learn to:

• Discover the Salesforce Ecosystem: Learn exactly what Salesforce does and learn how to leverage resources. You'll earn your very first Trailhead badges right in the room!
• Explore Headless 360 & The Future of AI: Dive into the very latest in Salesforce technology by building your own agent through conversation with Headless 360, and get an exclusive look at the current landscape and exciting future of AI at Salesforce.

This isn't just about learning; it's about doing. By mastering these foundational AI and Salesforce concepts, you are positioning yourself at the forefront of the tech industry. Our trainers will ensure you leave with actionable next steps for your career growth. 

Bring your laptop, bring your ambition, and get ready to build your agentic future! Space is limited, so arrive early and power up!

How do you go from an idea to something real? Jason Bennett, who leads AWS Worldwide Startups and Venture Capital, sits down with Cody Coleman, co-founder and CEO of Coactive AI, for a candid, personal conversation about how builders actually get started. They will trace their own paths, where their first ideas came from, how they turned them into something real, and what they wish they had known earlier. Expect honest stories, practical advice on the skills that matter now and what builders and investors look for in early talent, and an open floor to ask Jason and Cody your own questions.

Kick off the first day of the Expo by pitching to someone who's built a business on helping people get paid what they're worth. Bring your idea. Leave with a sharper one. Idea Hour is a live, open mic pitch session right in the middle of the Expo floor. Walk up, pitch what you're working on, and get real-time feedback from Rachel Rodgers, founder of Hello Seven and author of We Should All Be Millionaires.

Fantasy author J. Elle on building a dystopian world where the heart is the empire's sharpest blade, and what it takes to turn imagination into a career.

For generations, real estate was the primary vehicle for building and transferring wealth. Today, your voice, likeness, content, and personal brand can do what property once did: generate income, appreciate in value, and be passed down. Denise Bailey-Castro and Thai Randolph have built companies on this thesis. This conversation is about how to structure your IP as a real wealth-building asset and what to do right now to start.

Build it all with AI on AWS! This four hour session will cover the following:

• Create an HR Agent with Amazon Quick (1 hour)

  • This section provides experience working with Amazon Quick to create spaces and custom chat agents. 

• Exploring the Generative Business Intelligence Features in Amazon Quick (1 hour)
  • This section provides you with hands-on experience exploring the Generative Business Intelligence features in Amazon Quick Sight, allowing you to leverage natural language processing and automated analysis. 

• Building a Resume with AI (1 hour)

In this section you will learn how to review, improve and tailor your resume with AI using the AWS tool PartyRock. 

• App-Build with Amazon Quick (45 minutes)

In this section you will learn how to build different apps based on different scenarios using Amazon Quick.

For this session you will need to bring your own laptop.

Most teams buying compute have no framework for right-sizing it, and the cost of that gap is real. Drawing on experience at AWS and NVIDIA, this session walks through how GPUs perform in real systems, when a CPU is the better call, and what the difference means for budget and runway. A practical, scenario-based playbook for founders and builders who want smarter AI infrastructure decisions.

Join us for a dynamic gathering designed to celebrate and connect students from HBCUs. This meetup is a space for students to build community, exchange ideas, and network with peers who share a common academic and cultural experience. Attendees will have the chance to foster meaningful relationships, share resources, and gain inspiration from one another. Whether you’re seeking mentorship, collaboration, or simply a supportive environment, this meetup is all about honoring the legacy of HBCUs while creating new pathways for success.

This conversation brings together the people responsible for closing the talent gap to examine which leadership and pipeline programs are actually producing results, what has been lost as programs and investments have been cut, and where the strongest models are emerging.

Facilitator: Simone White, SVP of AfroTech & Live Events at Blavity Inc.

Debut author Michael Tinsley on building a Black-led fantasy epic from scratch, and the confidence it takes to go from idea to a published series.

Using Microsoft Fabric as the foundation, this session shows how unified data architecture and governance tools make it possible to build AI solutions that are technically sound and inclusive. The focus: connecting data across sources, applying transparency labels, and using visualization and storytelling to make analytics accessible and actionable for the people who need to act on them.

Every channel is saturated. AI has made content creation nearly free. Consumer loyalty is harder to earn than ever. Shannon Womack and Keena Grigsby are leading brand strategy at three of the most recognized names in business and navigating these pressures at scale every day. This conversation examines what it actually takes to cut through, build lasting consumer trust, and lead creative teams when the rules of brand are being rewritten in real time.

Got an idea? Building an app? Bring it to the mic.

Kick off the first day of the Expo by pitching to someone who's heard thousands of them, and knows what makes one stick. Idea Hour is a live, open mic pitch session right in the middle of the Expo floor. Walk up, pitch what you're working on, and get real-time feedback from Arlan Hamilton, founder of Backstage Capital and one of the most vocal champions of underrepresented founders in tech.

Every decision a company makes runs on data nobody is watching, until it breaks. Now AI is writing into that record faster than anyone can verify it. Rani Johnson has held the CIO seat five times. With Michelle Grover, she gets into where verification belongs, why an untraceable output is worse than a wrong one, and what it costs to build the check instead of auditing the damage later.

Two fantasy authors on imagination, Black representation, and claiming space in genres where we haven't always been centered.

Entrepreneur, speaker, and mentor Chauncéa on The Commission and how to align your career, creativity, and calling with a mission bigger than yourself.

Behind every AI breakthrough are datasets collected without consent, workers paid pennies to label training data, and communities bearing costs they never agreed to. Timnit Gebru, founder of the DAIR Institute, brings her research on algorithmic harm and AI power directly to the AfroTech stage. This conversation challenges every leader in the room: if your organization is building with AI, who is it actually built for?

Most AI models were not trained with the Black community in mind. Esosa Osa, Founder and CEO of Onyx Impact, takes the Main Stage for the first public look at AiSHA, an AI chatbot trained to reflect the truth, culture, and lived experience of Black America. Osa spent years fighting disinformation aimed at our communities. Now she is building the alternative. See what changes when the technology is designed with us at the center.

King Willonius turned a crowdsourced lyric into BBL DRIZZY, one of the most viral AI-generated songs of the past decade, earning a TIME 100 Most Influential in AI nod and a response from Drake. In this 15-20 minute mainstage moment, he does it again, live. He will pull sounds, prompts, and ideas directly from the audience and build a track in real time. No slides. No lecture. Just the process, unfiltered, in front of thousands.

See a list of all Official AFROTECH™ Event Partners HERE

A gathering for those passionate about purpose-driven innovation and community leadership. This dynamic experience welcomes changemakers from non-profits, .orgs, and social-impact-driven for-profits to connect around social entrepreneurship, equity initiatives, and long-term impact strategies. Designed for those transforming systems, amplifying equity, and empowering communities for sustainable change.

An intimate, small-group conversation with King Willonius, one of this year’s main stage speakers, reserved for All Access ticket holders. From comedian to creative technologist, he’ll share how he fused humor, music, and emerging tech into a career, then take your questions directly. Come with a question, leave with a new perspective on turning creativity into a career in tech.

A vibrant evening reception curated exclusively for AfroTech All Access & Executive badge holders to kick off the week in community. This elevated mixer offers early arrivals a chance to unwind, engage with fellow attendees, and build connections with speakers and industry leaders in a relaxed, high-touch setting.